Episode Report Card Cate: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Monkey Business (1)
By Cate | Season 7 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.15.2002
At the CamPound, RevCam is burning up the phone lines to Buffalo, informing Ben about Mary's new boyfriend. I think this is the allegedly fabulous plan that Annie tried to dissuade him from earlier. Eric's trying to convince Ben that Mary's just trying to get back at him, but that she really loves him. Oh, RevCam, why can't you have some dignity? Ben winds down the conversation by telling Eric to tell Mary that he's now dating his ex-girlfriend. He ends the conversation by slamming down the phone without even saying goodbye.As RevCam's frantically dialing and redialing Ben's number, the doorbell rings. For once, Eric is the only person to answer the door. It's Curtis, and he's here to pick up his chimpanzee. He's also solved the issue of keeping Eisenhower. His solution? He found a female chimp who was probably feeling lonely and unfulfilled without a man (this is 7th Heaven, after all). That poor chimp is made to wear a red dress, though the outfit is better than ninety-five percent of the clothing seen on this show. Curtis offers Ruthie twenty bucks for baby-sitting the chimp. RevCam makes her give it back. She asks Curtis to donate it to "the animal fund of [his] choice." After he leaves, I thought I could hear a retreating male voice shout, "Woo-hoo! Let's order pizza!" But I could be mistaken.
Simon is explaining to Robbie that Cecilia paid him to kiss her in order to make her boyfriend jealous. And -- get this -- she actually gave him forty bucks. Shouldn't this show really be called something like Beyond Belief? Robbie threatens to tell the CamRents about this if Simon ever does it again, to which Simon replies that Robbie is sounding more "Matt-like" all the time. Robbie takes that as a compliment.
The guys enter the CamKitchen, where Eric shoos them upstairs so he can continue obsessively redialing Ben's number. I can't help but be scared to find out what the next part of his grand plan may be.
Upstairs, Annie asks the guys what her husband is up to. Look, Annie, give it up. He's not going to have sex with you. You should just get yourself some sex toys. They have Hello Kitty ones, you know. In fact, maybe you can borrow one of Robbie's. Simon heads off to bed, telling his mom he loves her. She shouts back that she loves him too. Robbie just says good night and turns to leave. After a moment, he takes a chance and calls out, "Love you!" Annie shouts, "Love you too." It would have been funny if she'd toyed with him by dragging that out to say something like, "Love you to…take out the trash." But the scene, as it stands, was pretty damn nice.